Monthly Archives: April 2017

In many ways, I have accomplished the sorts of things we praise toddlers for: I’m eating solid foods! I’m using a fork! I’m getting new teeth (coming soon), and sleeping through the night! Oh, and I had to get one of those ear tubes, also known as” tympanostomy tubes or grommets,” due to a case of airplane ear. My kids had their share of ear infections when they were little, but never had to get an ear tube. Lucky for them–it really hurt! Apparently, many folks who have my kind of surgery need to get one of these things to help keep the eustaschian tubes clear. Just one more bump in this long and winding road to recovery!

So I have graduated to soft foods, which has been a source of great joy. While soup is still my fallback, the world has opened a little wider in the area of Foods I Can Eat Comfortably. And speaking of things opening a little wider, my challenging tongue-depressor jaw exercises have apparently been working, so in the next couple of weeks (drum roll…) I will be getting a temporary obturator that features replicas of my very own departed molars. Instead of the retainer-with-a-sidecar (and oh! how I wish I could drink a sidecar these days…), I will have a retainer with some teeth attached, which will probably remind me of the ghastly dentures my grandmother used to soak in a glass. Maybe I can get one with some embellishments or glitter. Doubtful.

The red circle of numbness is a lot smaller, as you can see in this highly filtered picture from a couple of years ago when I went for bangs:

As my doctor told me this week, the numbness can last a very long time. It may never completely go away, but I am encouraged by the changes in just the last few weeks.

Times being the way they are, I wish this video wasn’t live from Red Square, but it’s the best one I could find. So, as Sir Paul says:

My doctor refers to my newly missing parts as “the defect.” I guess it’s one way to describe this void I have in place of a section of jaw and those departed teeth, but I like to think of my healing process as fixing a hole.

I was always such a Paul girl… some things never change.

And this is a sidecar. Have one for me, if you like. Traditionally: Cointreau, cognac, lemon juice, sugar rim. Cheers!

I wrote this last year. Today would’ve been my sister’s 68th birthday: She was born on 4/9/49–a fact that always made her birthday seem more special. She is missed terribly by all who knew her. There’s an empty place at the table on this occasion, and all others when her friends or the family–whichever parts… Continue Reading

It’s now been five weeks since my surgery. Although I look almost normal, with some visible swelling on the right side of my face, I still feel as though I am wearing one of these: I can tell the numbness is going away by the sometimes tingly, sometimes sharp messages I’m getting from the nerves… Continue Reading